Just finished watching the first episode of the new drama adaptation of 1 Pound Gospel and I must say I have a lot of mixed feeling about it. The locations of
the story are awesome and they truly brought to life the different settings of the manga and if you do a careful comparison, the resemblance is impressive (the
gym especially took me by surprise). The actors played their part fairly according to the script; but that is just it.
Perhaps my biggest issue is the changes they did to the story and the characters. Maybe I expected too much, but seeing as there is a very clear source (manga) to both script and follow character design from, I was completely frustrated the way they changed everything.
Coach being a woman is not that much of a problem in my book, but her motivation to guide Hatanaka as a great champion just to fill the shoes of a previous champion of her gym when she was a child, seems small to the motivation of Coach Mukoda' (manga) ambition and responsibility to make Hatanaka a great fighter because he convinced him to drop out of high school and sees talent in him.
Kosaku is fairly portrayed, but for my taste he is too childish and lacks some of the fire that his manga counterpart possesses.
Sister Angela is perhaps the character that I can complain to the most. While we quickly see that Sister's manga incantation is an indecisive person, she does have a clear mind and I cannot remember her not supporting Hatanaka to always succeed. The drama's Sister is however too passive for my taste and is too indecisive without some strong emotion to back it up. I'm sure the actress portrays her as they directed her to do so, but nonetheless the character change is too much for me.
I was grieving also when they presented the Iinchou of the Convent as a very frail looking old lady very supportive of Angela and her escapades, as opposed to the strong, decisive and strict Mother Abbess. Surely they could have kept this wonderful character. Alas, they did not.
For the title opponent of this episode, they chose to portray Onimaru. And that did it for me. They totally screwed up the progression that Kosaku was supposed to have. Onimaru was a welter underdog, but this time they lowered them all the way to Flyweight. Also, they gave Onimaru a son already and took the emotional part of him having a baby and the part that Angela played in her birth.
I seriously hope that they can follow the source more closely for the next episodes or this will be a rather frustrating ride for me. As a bit 1 Pound Gospel fan of many years, I am very excited that they chose to adapt this wonderful series to the little screen, but I guess that being so old the producers thought they could give it a twist to freshen it up. It does not rattle my cage at all though and just feel rather frustrated. Happy....but frustrated ^.^'
Perhaps my biggest issue is the changes they did to the story and the characters. Maybe I expected too much, but seeing as there is a very clear source (manga) to both script and follow character design from, I was completely frustrated the way they changed everything.
Coach being a woman is not that much of a problem in my book, but her motivation to guide Hatanaka as a great champion just to fill the shoes of a previous champion of her gym when she was a child, seems small to the motivation of Coach Mukoda' (manga) ambition and responsibility to make Hatanaka a great fighter because he convinced him to drop out of high school and sees talent in him.
Kosaku is fairly portrayed, but for my taste he is too childish and lacks some of the fire that his manga counterpart possesses.
Sister Angela is perhaps the character that I can complain to the most. While we quickly see that Sister's manga incantation is an indecisive person, she does have a clear mind and I cannot remember her not supporting Hatanaka to always succeed. The drama's Sister is however too passive for my taste and is too indecisive without some strong emotion to back it up. I'm sure the actress portrays her as they directed her to do so, but nonetheless the character change is too much for me.
I was grieving also when they presented the Iinchou of the Convent as a very frail looking old lady very supportive of Angela and her escapades, as opposed to the strong, decisive and strict Mother Abbess. Surely they could have kept this wonderful character. Alas, they did not.
For the title opponent of this episode, they chose to portray Onimaru. And that did it for me. They totally screwed up the progression that Kosaku was supposed to have. Onimaru was a welter underdog, but this time they lowered them all the way to Flyweight. Also, they gave Onimaru a son already and took the emotional part of him having a baby and the part that Angela played in her birth.
I seriously hope that they can follow the source more closely for the next episodes or this will be a rather frustrating ride for me. As a bit 1 Pound Gospel fan of many years, I am very excited that they chose to adapt this wonderful series to the little screen, but I guess that being so old the producers thought they could give it a twist to freshen it up. It does not rattle my cage at all though and just feel rather frustrated. Happy....but frustrated ^.^'
How many changes can they make before we can't call it OPG anymore? The
basic storyline is there and the main characters, but the supporting cast all seems to be pulled out of thin air. You'd think that if a producer liked OPG
so much, they would have stuck more closely to the storyline.
